Tag: Cape Town

At Newlands last night

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40,000 turned up last night at a bitterly cold Newlands to watch the Emerging Boks side taken on what was, in truth, a second string British and Irish Lions team. It was cold, stormy, windy, wet, very wet and very cold, but at least there was red wine and brandy on tap.


The Lions’ new defensive formation left gaps out wide

Of course, that was just for those of us in the posh seats. The guys down in the stands didn’t have such luxuries. Although one of them had a vuvuzela. Naughty! And then, with the Lions 10-0 ahead, Earl Rose set up the ball for a kick at goal (or whatever they call it in egg-chasing) and the heavens properly opened.


So much of rain at Newlands

Rose was unperturbed (although I’m sure I heard him murmur “Bugger!!” under his breath), got Luzuko Vulindlu to lie face down in the mud and hold the ball and went about missing the kick anyway.

Half time and I headed off to expunge the brace of first half Peronis. Now, I know that there is a certain urinal etiquette and that one looks ahead or down, never left or right, but it is kind of difficult to obey the unwritten rules of public weeing when you find a six foot Danger Mouse on your right and a slightly shorter Mr Incredible on your left. Seriously. And then I passed a Ninja Turtle on the way out of the loos. Either the British contingent were there in full fancy dress or those beers had been tampered with.

To cut a cold story short, the game finished 13-13 and we headed home, cold, but satisfied. My car said it was 6°C, but I’m sure it was lying. Either that or the minus sign (never tested) doesn’t work.

Bed never seemed so inviting.

The Planets Bend Between Us

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Not literally, obviously. That would surely indicate personal possession of some sort of massive gravitational force by both you and I.
I find that idea almost laughable, since I gave up having an orbiting celestial body a long time ago.

Unless you know something I don’t?

No – remember just one month ago, when the grass was brown, the skies were blue and Snow Patrol (amongst others) came to entertain us in South Africa? Well, while they were here doing CokeZeroFest and opening the IPL at Newlands, they also filmed their new video for The Planets Bend Between Us.
Cape Town fundi’s will recognise Bo Kaap, the broken freeway and possibly other more generic Cape Town venues, all beautifully presented and then vandalised and/or torn up by a terrifyingly large pair of hands.

I happen to know that Snow Patrol’s lead singer Gary Lightbody does actually possess a massive gravitational force. That’s why every time he sticks his arms up in the air, the city rotates around him. Thankfully, he is a Rochdale FC fan and therefore doesn’t get to stick his arms up in the air very often. Gary also likes watching vintage episodes of Airwolf and eating grapes.
Thus ends my list of fake Gary Lightbody facts. If you have any of your own, please let me know by commenting below.

Or maybe you should just enjoy the video and the song.

Incoming

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Cape Town’s first big storm of the year is due this weekend, described on surfers’ website Wavescape as follows:

A moerse storm smacks Cape Town this Saturday with the first of a double frontal burst – the first serious beast of the season… just look at the length of the wind below. Basically it’s a stab wound that bleeds from the ice-shelf right up to your tannie’s koeksusters cooling on her stoep at Stilbaai. It’s the ingrown toenail of a fierce oceanic convulsion, dug out with the scalpel of your childhood veruka, the deepest root canal of all your evils.

Mmmkay.

Here’s what Eumetsat shows:

strm1

Which doesn’t look that bad – yet. Further investigation shows that the pressure will dip as low as 940mb though, which is pretty scary, based on the fact that we’re currently sat at 1011mb and Hurricane Katrina was 920mb when it made landfall. (Although not in Cape Town, obviously.)  

I love this sort of weather, even though we’re going to see winds close on 100kph. I hope to get out and about with the camera, like I did last August, which was spectacular.

So assuming we make it through in one piece, what of next week? Wavescape has that covered:

The storm swell is expected to peak at a very steep, short frequency surge to 20 feet by Saturday evening and into Sunday before it boosts to 25 feet on Sunday afternoon, with Monday huge too, Tuesday cranking as the wind eases. The whole coast between Agulhas and the Wild Coast is absolutely off its face on Monday and Tuesday, and solid grinding South swell lasts along the southern Cape all week.

That’s like… totally gnarly, dude.

Live from CokeZeroFest

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aKING aren’t doing it for me. But that’s not a problem, because it means we can refuel with burgers and beer. Highlights so far have been Cassette and Zebra & Giraffe. But that’s not to say that the Afrikaans offerings of DHF and Foto na Dans weren’t impressive too. And the Dirty Skirts – also impressive.

The venue is beautiful, surrounded by mountains and topped with a glorious blue sky. And the organisation has been superb – from the signage and the parking, to the bars and the food stands. There’s a complete party atmosphere and smiles everywhere. Even the portaloos are lovely, although experience suggests that may change in the near future.

All in all, a brilliant experience and money well spent. And this before any of the ‘big’ bands have even thought about coming on stage.

Written on my Sony Ericsson Xperia X1. At CokeZeroFest 2009.
Nice.

What a difference a day made…

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Twenty-four little hours.
Brought the smoke and the fires.
Where there used to be green.


Before and after – The Devils Peak Fire

Houses in High Cape and Vredehoek (where I used to live) were evacuated at 1 o’clock this morning as high winds threatened drive the fire into residential areas. Spectacular iol pictures.

Today, it’s just a matter of damping down what’s left of the vegetation and  putting out the fires in the kloofs on the Groote Schuur Estate. Just for an idea of scale, those three “little” fires you can see up at the top of the mountain have flames up to five storeys high according to the Cape Town Fire Department spokesman on the radio. S’big, then.